Style

Point of View

Bang the Drum Slowly has a unique point of view, to say the least. The narrator is Henry Wiggen, a fictional baseball player, who claims to be writing this very book. He often makes reference to things which happen in his life while he is writing it. In fact, the title page of the book lists Henry as the author, and lists Mark Harris as an editor of sorts. Mark Harris is the real author, and also the author of a previous book about Henry, called "The Southpaw". To further complicate matters, Henry claims to have written "The Southpaw", and as a result, the other ballplayers in the story call him "Author". This blurs the line between fiction and reality, until the primary reminder that it is a work of fiction, is that New York does not really have a baseball team called the Mammoths...